Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter, Former President Jimmy Carter is expected to arrive Friday in the U.S. with a U.S. citizen who was imprisoned in North Korea after entering the isolated communist country illegally in January, The Carter Center said here.

North Korea condemned the Americans, Aijalon Mahli Gomes, eight years of hard labor and a fine of about 600,000 for illegally crossing the border with China and an unspecified “hostile act.”

“At the request of President Carter, and for humanitarian purposes, Mr. Gomes was pardoned by the president of the National Defense Commission Kim Jong-il,” the Carter Center said in a statement. “It is expected that Mr. Gomes will be returned to Boston, Massachusetts, on Friday afternoon to meet with his mother and other family members.”

The Gomes family plans to issue a statement on the statement late Friday morning, the spokeswoman said Thaleia Schlesinger.